Dear Curtis,
Not a strange request at all, and I'd be happy to give you a little info in response.
In Northern Virginia, in the Herndon/Reston area, we have several buildings dedicated to PSINet. Because of the way we have grown over the years, some are contiguous, some are not. My first office is currently a spare equipment closet in our Herndon data center. My current office is in an office building that is "HQ", with Bill Schrader on one side of me, and Pete Wills on the other.
Our Legal Department comprises 8 lawyers, 3 legal assistants, 5 executive assistants, and other help from time to time. We have 2 lawyers in Canada, and one in Switzerland on our staff, and are looking for more in Europe and Asia, as well as one or two more in the US. Our in-house staff work closely with the other M&A team members from the operations side of the house, as well as with outside counsel in any country we happen to be in or be looking at.
We also work closely with the Finance/Accounting groups. Ed Postal is just down the hall, with his US staff.
As for our days, both I and the others in our executive, legal, finance and operations groups work whatever hours are required. There is not a "typical" day, since we may work through the night, over weekends, or in other countries, as needed. We spend a lot of time in airplanes.
I myself do both legal and "strategy" work. One of my earliest strategic efforts was to develop an International presence for the company. I work closely with Bill, Pete and Ed in looking at new directions for the company, and there isn't one that doesn't get a lot of attention from me or from someone else in "Legal", especially Kathy Horne, our Deputy General Counsel, or Dave Kramer, Assistant General Counsel.
Another "time sink" for us is government/regulatory matters, in which John Logalbo on our legal staff takes the laboring oar. This includes not only US matters, but European Community initiatives and individual Asian country matters as well.
Finally, being a member of our board of directors, I spend some time working on board-level reviews of particular matters or initiatives.
Throughout the company, the level of energy and excitement is always high. Try looking at one of our parking lots on a Friday night, or on a weekend. You will see a large number of sales, technical and operations folks working into the night.
Yes, they read posts on SI and Yahoo, too. I even get comments from our people in Asia and Europe on your posts, my responses, and other communications issues. We stay in touch.
What do I look like? Well, my picture has been in our annual report, in magazine articles, and the like. Mid fifties, WASP, moustache, greying hair, and generally not as good looking as I used to be....
Curtis, thanks for your interest, and your support over the years. And yes, I do read those jokes and messages that you occasionally send to the mailing list of hundreds....
Best regards,
Dave Kunkel |
